Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Post-Election Musings

I just got back from a Board of Trade “Special Breakfast” meeting.

Now I usually just attend these things for the breakfast, but sometimes you can get some interesting tidbits of political information.

Like today, for instance, Greg Lyle from the Innovative Research Group gave a presentation on the current political scene in Canada.

Lyle has been doing some post-election polling and he says the number one thing Canadians expected from the new Conservative government was a more ethical approach to government.

Then came the Emerson affair. Oops.

But actually according to Lyle the Emerson floor crossing didn’t hurt the Tories too much. In fact, Lyle’s poll shows the Tories with the support of 35 percent of Canadians, which is pretty much where they were on election night.

After the first two weeks in office 30 percent of Canadians, says the Lyle poll, think the Tories are dong worse than expected, 11 percent think they are doing better than expected and 40 percent think they are doing exactly as expected, while 17 percent think it’s too early to tell.

Lyle says if the Tories want to get any traction over the next few weeks they should stick to issues which play to their strength: improving relations with the US; cutting the GST; battling crime.

And speaking of the Liberals, Lyle says the people who poll best for their next leader – McKenna, Tobin, Rock – aren’t running.

Of those who might run, Michael Ignatieff has the best numbers but they are not that great.

There was a bunch of other stuff discussed but that’s about all I was able to comprehend so early in the morning.

3 comments:

Adam Daifallah said...

Ignatieff's numbers are high because its the only name anyone knows. Same reason for Dryden's apparently high level of support.

Monkey Loves to Fight said...

I think Harper should be defeated too at the next election, but I am not really in the mood for another election. Anyways I won't be voting Conservative if Harper leads the Conservatives into the next election.

Anonymous said...

The only place the Emerson's defection is playing out strongly is in B.C. East of the Rockies on a scale of 1-10
the Emerson defection ranks close to a
3 IMO. The media can be thanked for saturating the issue to death so that channels are automatically getting changed.

Liberals are just sore losers with little hope and lots of debt paying ahead. Those using propping up the Liberals as examples of all that's fair and democratic in our country need only to be reminded of the Dithers Entitlement to Entitlements
"Hands Our Pockets" all over again.